Saving £350K in recruitment costs with Cezanne
TLWR? Here’s a summary:
BBF Limited, a growing food manufacturer with 2,000 employees, replaced a manual spreadsheet-based recruitment process with Cezanne Recruitment. The new recruitment software system streamlined hiring through automation and integrated job board posting, helping the team reduce time to hire from 38 days to 27 days and save approximately £350k annually. It also improved candidate experience and gave the recruitment team a central, organised platform to manage hiring at scale.
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BBF Limited is a major player in the food manufacturing and cake sector, employing around 2,000 people across its operations. As a fast-growing organisation, the company is constantly exploring new opportunities to expand its business and strengthen its workforce.
Supporting that growth meant attracting the right people quickly, and delivering a candidate experience that reflects the strength of the BBF employer brand. To do that, the team needed a recruitment process that was organised, efficient, and capable of scaling with the business.
However, their existing approach wasn’t doing that, and it was starting to hold them back.
The Challenge
Before implementing Cezanne Recruitment software (then called Occupop), BBF Limited’s hiring process relied heavily on manual administration.
Vacancies, candidates, and recruitment activity were all managed through a single Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. As hiring volumes increased, this approach became increasingly difficult to manage. The team lacked clear visibility over candidates, coordination across hiring managers was challenging, and routine tasks took far longer than they should have.
A lack of job board integrations added another layer of complexity. Vacancies had to be posted manually, applications needed to be tracked by hand, and the process was far from seamless for either recruiters or candidates.
The result? A recruitment process that was time-consuming, difficult to scale, and not delivering the smooth candidate journey BBF wanted to offer.
The solution
Determined to modernise their recruitment process, BBF Limited began searching for a recruitment software platform that could streamline hiring while supporting their long-term growth plans.
Alex Rose, who had previously used Cezanne Recruitment at another organisation, already knew the system’s strengths – particularly its ease of use and built-in job board integrations. After reviewing other platforms including Talos360 and Blue Octopus, the team ultimately chose Cezanne Recruitment.
Key factors in their decision to choose Cezanne included:
- A user-friendly system that could be adopted quickly by hiring teams
- Integrated job board posting, helping vacancies reach more candidates with less manual effort
- Competitive pricing compared with alternative solutions
- A platform that is continuously evolving, with regular improvements and updates
Once implemented, Cezanne Recruitment quickly addressed many of the pain points the team had been experiencing.
Automated workflows reduced the administrative burden on HR, giving the team more time to focus on engaging with candidates and supporting hiring managers. Meanwhile, integrated job board publishing helped increase the volume and quality of applicants.
The result was a recruitment process that was faster, more organised, and far easier to manage.
The results
The impact of Cezanne Recruitment was quickly felt across BBF Limited’s hiring process.
Faster time to hire
Within the first three months of implementation, BBF Limited reduced their average time to hire from 38 days to just 27 days. In some cases, critical roles were filled within a week – a significant improvement compared to their previous process.
Significant cost savings
By introducing a dedicated recruitment platform and streamlining manual processes, BBF also achieved major cost savings.
The company now estimates that using Cezanne Recruitment software saves them around £350,000 per year compared to their previous approach, which relied entirely on manual tracking and administration without an Applicant Tracking System (ATS).
A more professional recruitment experience
Alongside the measurable improvements in speed and cost, the system has also helped BBF Limited create a more professional and engaging recruitment process. The recruitment team now benefits from:
- A central hub for managing all hiring activity
- Improved candidate experience through a smoother application process
- Better visibility of recruitment performance through reporting and analytics
- The ability to manage hiring remotely when needed
Together, these improvements have helped BBF Limited build a recruitment process that supports their growth ambitions while strengthening their employer brand.
